Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Moscow Unwittingly Promoting Broader Anti-Russian Identities in the North Caucasus

Paul
Goble

Staunton, April 18 – Historians have
often observed that the North Caucasus can unite only on the basis of Islam or
a mountaineer identity, otherwise its peoples will fight among themselves, and
that Moscow has traditionally worked hard to keep them divided lest any unity
emerge as the basis for a challenge to Russian rule.

But now, under Vladimir Putin, the
Russian authorities are taking steps in two key areas that undercut all of that
past strategy either because of a failure to understand what is at stake or
because of a focus on short-term tactical outcomes rather than longer-term
goals and thus make Russia’s control of the region at the very least more
problematic in the future.

The first concerns the Circassians,
a nation tsarist forces expelled, the Soviets divided into more than five parts,
and the current Russian government refuses to recognize as compatriots those
Circassians seeking to return to their homeland because of conflicts in Syria
where many have been living.

Valery Khatazhukov, head of the
Kabardino-Balkar Regional Human Rights Center, says that the Circassians of
Syria and elsewhere should be granted that status because they speak one of the
state languages– their language is official in the Adygey Republic – but that
Moscow hasn’t been willing to do so (kavkazr.com/a/cherkesy-dobivayutsa-priznania/28435551.html).

Instead, it has set up quotas for
each of the north Caucasus republics and neighboring Russian kray where most Circassians
now live and thrown up obstacles, including the payment of high fees for visas
and resident permits, that have prevented Syria’s Circassians from filling even
these quotas.

Moreover, in one infamous case, the
Russian authorities expelled Syrian refugees from sanatoriums in
Kabardino-Balkaria in order to provide housing for refugees from Ukraine
following the Russian invasion of that country and the Crimean Anschluss,
Khatzhukov continues.

Had the Russian authorities simply
given Circassians from Syria the status of compatriots and allowed them to
return, there would have been an increase in the Circassian peoples in the
North Caucasus, something that Moscow has always feared.But by denying them that status and restricting
their entry, the Russian authorities have produced an outcome even worse for
them.

Just as was the case in the run-up
to the Sochi Olympiad, when Moscow’s refusal to respect what had been the 1864
killing fields in which Circassians were murdered or expelled served to
radicalize the Circassian community around the world, now, its actions or
rather refusal to act is not only further radicalizing them but unifying them.

Indeed, it is striking that both
Russians and members of the Moscow-sponsored subgroups of Circassians now talk
exclusively about the Circassians, something that encourages them to think of
themselves as a nation rather than a congeries of smaller peoples and possibly
to act on the basis of that communality. If so, Moscow will have only itself to
blame

The second case involves the Alan
identity. In 1994, the North Ossetian Republic within the Russian Federation
added Alania to its name, thus linking it to the medieval kingdom of that name
which ruled over much of the North Caucasus. A few days ago, South Ossetia,
which Soviet forces helped to break away from Georgia, voted to rename itself
the State of Alania.

That latter decision, especially in
combination with the first, has been viewed critically or sympathetically as an
indication that South Ossetia will soon fuse with North Ossetia within the
borders of the Russian Federation. That seems to be Moscow’s intention, but the
renaming tactic is already having some unintended consequences.

That is because, as Alikhan
Kharsiyev, a Duma deputy from Ingushetia, points out, the Ossetians are not the
only nation with roots in Alania. Almost all the peoples of the central North Caucasus
do, a fact scholars from the region could have told Moscow had they not been
suppressed as “enemies of the people” (mk.ru/politics/2017/04/13/alanskaya-golovolomka.html).

Now,
he says, there is every chance to talk about this common Alan identity, to
focus on what “unites” rather than “divides” the peoples of the North Caucasus,
something that is especially important because alone, “we are small peoples,
and little depends on us.” But together, far more can be done.

As
far as the Ossetian decisions to call themselves Alania, this is their own
affair; but they should remember that there are Alan symbols and identities in
Ingushetia, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia as well,
and all these peoples should be uniting on the basis of this earlier and not
forgotten identity, Kharsiyev says.

“We
are obligated to begin a civilized discussion on all these controversial
questions. We do not have the right to suggest that everything is normal and be
silent,” poses that will open the way for “irresponsible and illiterate people
and simply provocateurs to fill this vacuum” especially among the young.

And
he concludes with questions: “the longer politicians put off the resolution of
this issue, the greater the harm, for the Caucasus and for Russia.Clearly, sooner or later the leadership of
the country will have to take up this issue. But what about us? Will we act
like always and complain to one another about Moscow?” Or will be finally act
on our own?

The
Duma deputy clearly believes that moving from ethnic identities to an
historically based one will be a stepping stone toward integration of the
people of the North Caucasus into the Russian political nation.But there is every likelihood that the result
will be just the reverse, that a larger Alan nation will be more ready to
resist Moscow than even its smaller components.